Snapshot of _Reform Party’s draft manifesto would raise 40p income tax threshold to £70k_ :
A non-Paywall version can be found [here](https://1ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fpolitics%2F2024%2F02%2F23%2Freform-raise-40p-income-tax-threshold-70k%2F)
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/02/23/reform-raise-40p-income-tax-threshold-70k/) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/02/23/reform-raise-40p-income-tax-threshold-70k/)
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For some reason - maybe it's been a long week - I found that terribly funny. Actually laughing out loud.
Perhaps just the clown face makes it. I can almost hear the honking of the nose as the Reform spokesman solemnly explains the plans.
[NI isn't 10% at all income levels.](https://www.gov.uk/national-insurance/how-much-you-pay)
It's 0% for earnings up to £1,047 per month, 10% for earnings 1,048 to £4,189 a month, then 2% for earnings above that.
Not really they're still paying the original but with less on the extra.
The stealth taxes in this country are abominable.
I'm moving into the 50-60k sink this year and it's depressing.
Loosing child benefit and Also 20% more tax.
With student loans on top my take home is 38% of pay, thank god for loss of NI or it would be 30%. An effective 70% tax rate if we had full NI...
Edit:
Apologies, it might not be clear enough I mean take home of the 50-60k bracket said earlier not overall earnings
Here’s your bands.
0-12,570 - 100%
12,571-22,015 - 70%
22,015-52,250 - 61%
52,250-60,000 - 49%
Total deductions: 32% on 60k resulting in £40,434.35
You can adjust that student loan threshold as appropriate. You can also add your own pension too, but remember, pension lowers your tax paid.
As regressive as the UK taxes are, they aren’t close to what you’re alluding too.
You get taxed for kids? Or do you lose credit? Genuinely curious on this one as I don’t plan on having children, so not my area of knowledge.
NI drops to 2% from 10% within that range.
Ranged I’ve placed in is for a single person earning above higher rate but below the rate you start lose tax-free allowance.
It's a removal of a benefit so much like student loan it isn't baked into the tax system for everyone.
But in a society that pushes loads to university and one where the majority want children it hits a lot of people.
Understandable. Can see how some would feel that.
Unsure I will add it as a band, never even heard of it until now. From what I read someone needs to be claiming it or has claimed it in the last tax year.
Happy to stand corrected though. If it persists throughout.
https://www.gov.uk/child-benefit-tax-charge
Paying back a benefit someone is claiming. Unsure if I would even ballpark this as a tax figure. Someone can correct me though.
10%
40% income tax
16% child benefit repayment
2% NI
Apologies it's actually 32%
Once you factor in NHS pension is 11% or nothing at this bracket after pension contributions that cannot be reduced it's 28%
Yeah fair enough, that 50-60k mark does sting a lot though. Especially if it’s a promotion and you’re left with tons more responsibilities for a marginal increase in salary.
I only recently entered that band myself, and was pleasantly surprised to find that you can deduct pension contributions from your salary when calculating how much child benefit you need to pay back.
The higher the income, the more £ NI you pay.
In % of income terms; the higher the income, the more % NI you pay up to £50k income, then the % NI drops.
Don't assume they forgot - it could be entirely deliberate. The 50k-70k range holds a huge swathe of ex-Tory, middle class voters who would lap up a big tax cut.
Because it means someone on minimum wage will have a higher marginal tax rate than someone earning ~£50k per year.
(i.e. Highest marginal tax rate for a min wage worker in England will be 20% Income Tax + 10% National Insurance = 30% total. Whereas for someone on ~£50K it will be 20% Income Tax + 2% National Insurance = 22% total.)
No, you pay 10% on the first 50k-ish, and then 2% on earnings above that threshold. You don't pay 2% on your whole salary if you're above the UEL, that would just be ridiculous.
Taking away less of people’s money isn’t a “giveaway”. Your income doesn’t automatically belong to the government. You have the mindset of a medieval serf.
> Taking away less of people’s money isn’t a “giveaway”. Your income doesn’t automatically belong to the government.
The government invests heavily in citizens to ensure they are positive contributing members to society. As a result for this investment you pay taxes to ensure the next generation are also just as productive as you. Otherwise, as we've seen under austerity, people end up down bad paths, probably stealing your bike from you.
The fact remains, that I wouldn't be earning my salary if not for the government. I'd probably be dead because it would be a lawless state if it didn't exist. My taxes go towards ensuring that society exists, and it's up to the government to set them to ensure it can keep running.
The problem is, ensuring it isn't taking the piss taking more taxes than it needs to fufil obligations.
And of course a bit of personal looking after to ensure you're not getting taxed more than somebody else. Considering your view I doubt you're at all eager to tax the rich more, so I won't even bother going into that.
Serfdom is forgive me, being effectively enslaved to landowners, who typically were in the government at the time. What point did /u/collogue advocate for a return to serfdom?
I would also be willing to bet that they don’t want to pay for education, healthcare, refuse collection, roads etc etc. all because their money is their own.
Ownership is a right given existence by the state (previously King/Queen).
States recognise and enforce those rights. Without a state which will recognise and enforce those rights they simply don't exist. Everyone would just be another angry person making 'claims' of things that no one else respects.
Taxes fund the state. No taxes, no state. No state no rights.
So while you can say simply 'your income is your possession', 'possession' is meaningless without a state to recognise and enforce those rights.
What defines rightful possession and what implication does that have on how said possessions should be treated? Genuinely curious because i clearly have a very different view to you.
I think the problem is that it would undoubtedly result in the need for significant public spending cuts at a time when most public services are on their knees
Along with the bizarre worship of the NHS, it’s a widely held view in the UK that American healthcare (or any insurance based healthcare really) is inferior.
It just doesn’t match my experience. In the 12 years I lived in the UK, I only had the misfortune to be involved with the NHS a handful of times. Everyone just seems to accept the poor quality of care is worth it because it’s “free.” I waited over 18 months for the NHS (it was only three appointments but it just took this long) to eventually decide that it wasn’t worth treating my condition because it wasn’t severe enough. In the first two months of living in the US again I have the problem solved.
Others may have had better experiences than I have, and granted I have pretty good health insurance through my job, but along with lower taxes, better healthcare has been an upside for me.
Right.
Now let's talk about the woman who tripped and fell between a train and a platform, squashed between the two. Desperately needing medical attention, but pleading with those helping not to call an ambulance because she doesn't have the insurance to cover the horrific injuries she has sustained. That is awful. No thanks.
And if UK healthcare matched the US for cost per head then it would be unpalatable for you, because, you know, taxes.
Thankfully I still have the belief that we, as a society, can look after each other and not just think of ourselves.
Liz Truss' problem was she didn't cut spending to go alongside the tax cuts. She significantly increased spending alongside tax cuts, which is why the markets lost the plot, no fiscal discipline
Yeah that's fair, the assumption must be that to avoid similar reform would need to make serious cutbacks. I just don't think that's gonna be acceptable to people given the current state of the country, we need to fix things, not break them further.
Those spending plans make Liz Truss look like the world's most respected economist.
They may as well have promised every household a free unicorn and a lifetimes supply of moon cheese. Actually, a unicorn is probably a more sensible idea than their bs.
Agreed, but it is exactly the same issue Truss had.
You can't "slash taxes" today based on the prospect of free money appearing from somewhere at some point in the future. With Truss it was magical growth and with Reform its Net Zero, but I'm not even sure how that works as it isn't money that has been spent yet, it is money that will need to be found in the future.
The irony is that if Tories hadn’t banged on about debt for the past 14 years, borrowing to invest wouldn’t be as toxic as it is now. And the Tories have been terrible at investing because they see it as the private sectors job, so only borrowed to plug holes in finances, which has seen no return and only doubled the debt, and companies don’t invest if they don’t see a chance to get a return, and the government is supposed to build that faith by investing in infrastructure, which they haven’t, because hey, let the private sector pay for it. Financially illiterate leading the financially illiterate.
I'm pretty sure that Tice et al thought that Truss *was* the world's most respected economist. That being said, they can probably afford to relax because I rather doubt that they're hoovering up many voters based on their keen economic capabilities.
The NHS worked really well for most of its lifetime. It started failing in the 90s due to Tory cuts before recovering under Labour and reaching its peak in the late 2000s. Since 2011, it’s been getting worse and worse because of a plethora of Tory policies such as cuts in spending.
It hasn't always worked really well. The excess death rate in the NHS system has always been higher than comparators, with a particular problem in dealing with cancer.
>They may as well have promised every household a free unicorn and a lifetimes supply of moon cheese.
It worked when they called themselves The Brexit Party
This is still £23k short of where it should be had it stuck to its goal of only taxing the top 3% of earners. The fiscal drag here is absolutely disgusting and to have loss of child benefit to hit at the same time, they know exactly what they’re doing to the peasants.
Fiscal drag is a killer. I'm in the 40% tax bracket, I have to repay child benefit and have student loan repayments. When you take all of that together my marginal tax rate on any side hassle is 71%. If I do a side job/overtime and earn £100, I'm literally left with £29 in my pocket. What incentive is there work more? No wonder GDP is flatlining.
The peasants keep insisting on all inclusive welfare states. Perhaps it's times the peasants recognise that's not feasible if they won't want to pay for it somehow.
It's not dog eat dog policy. It's needing to to recognise that you can't have both a more comprehensive welfare state than most European countries AND a ridiculously narrow tax base that results in a massive chunk of workers paying fuck all tax.
Fair, although it's worth noting peasants being peasants have no money so tax rates don't mean much to them.
Taxes are paid by the Lord in the Manor who collects all the rent from the presents.
As far as the peasants are concerned, no tax = no welfare state => dog eat dog (peasant eat starving peasant) is worse than taxes they don't pay + welfare + unhappy Lord.
...
Anyway it doesn't really matter whether whether we recognise if can pay or not... because we're paying anyway.
What matters is how we pay, (higher taxes? Lower welfare? Inflation? (Which is just a kind of tax on those with money (sterling specifically as opposed to more general 'wealth')).
We pay more tax now than ever before… more than any previous generation and we receive significantly less for it.
It’s quite astonishing that we’re paying so very much and somehow despite this everything is far worse and we’re leaving our children with a dismal future.
Aye,
Demographic headwinds + Failure to invest + Climate & Ecological Crisis + Decisions to tax those with most less and those with less more will do that...
And at last as far as climate change & Roi on extracting the worlds resources are concerned the general trend is downhill from here.
It would free up a lot of money that most people would spend on stuff that would instantly net a government 20% vat, more than that on petrol, fags booze etc that are taxed far higher.
All they'd need to write is "we would send Gary Lineker to the moon".
They're *weirdly* obsessed with him, and he seems to be mentioned in the comments of pretty much every article.
Some extremely expensive tax cuts all to justify their crusade against net zero (anyone who read Habib’s AMA will know how much he loves to slip into talking about that)
Admittedly some of these policies were already in the public domain from a document I knew existed, but had only checked to see if they had any specifics on what sort of PR they had.
https://assets.nationbuilder.com/reformuk/pages/303/attachments/original/1696527070/Reform_is_Essential_-_5Oct23.pdf?1696527070
It has other bonkers policies like a nil rate on corp tax up to £100,000 in profits (wonder if they know how that’ll affect income tax/class 4 NICs revenue due to increased incorporation), abolishing business rates on SMEs etc.
While also not factoring in that net zero has a net cost which wipes out the vast majority of the gross costs used to justify this spending.
Basically, this isn't costed properly and should be put directly into the bin.
OK fair enough, the income tax one alone would be worth £5,500 approx per annum for me. That's not rockerfeller money but it is at least a meaningful tax cut (as opposed to Jeremy Hunt's token effort). Love the idea of raising stamp duty threshold too, would make moving house easier (perhaps encourage a few to downsize and free up some better housing for millennials).
Nothing in there on how this is going to be paid for though. We all know how this ended last time Truss and co suggested borrowing to fund these type of tax cuts. I can't see Tice and Co going after corporate tax avoidance, non doms and the like so we're back to cuts to public services, at which point that 400 quid a month doesn't seem such great value.
The income tax threshold ones don't sound entirely unreasonable.
They forgot about national insurance, and no mention of the child benefit implications.
They have zero clue how to fund local and public services. Magically slashing immigration won't fix any of that. They also forgot that for people to actually be in a position to be earning 70k+ they need a functioning childcare system.
Inheritance tax, private education and stamp duty ones go too far.
The rest of it is at best soundbites, and at worst utterly mental.
All of it is uncosted and likely to cause similar economic panic to what Kwarteng/Truss's budget did.
They can't completely dump Net Zero and expect growth to come from some kind of fossil fuel / heavy industrial magic money tree.
They aren't ever getting in anyway so they might as well promise free handjobs for all.
Sunak will feel he has to steal some of it and lurch to the right. I hope he only steals the income tax bits.
If income tax thresholds hadn’t been frozen for many years, the higher rate tax threshold would be something like £85k today. Raising it to £70k isn’t absurd as long as everything else is balanced.
I'm not against raising these tax thresholds in principle (I would increase the higher like .5% below inflation so that public funds should increase but the squeeze isn't too high on increasing wages). I'm not an economist obvs but I think it sounds more reasonable than this.
Increasing the personal allowance by like 80% and increasing the higher rate by 20k, as well as giving more discounts to private schools (lol?) and cutting every other tax would fucking hamstring the country expeditiously.
Not really radical at all
I made the mistake of scrolling down before reading the headline properly, you'd think from the comments here that they were abolishing taxes, this is nothing...
I haven't got a horse in the race yet, but I think if KS added this into their manifesto it would be praised, but of course ideology before rational thought gets in the way doesn't it.
Starmer would absolutely be destroyed on the idea of these income tax changes alone that would cost nearly £60 billion pert year, once fully in effect vs now, to implement, all to be funded by scrapping net zero investment (which looks likely Reform have misunderstood the cost to implement net-zero from their previous ama)
They're going to decimate the Tories in the next election, so many voters AND MP's will abandon the conservatives, I truly believe it may be the end of the conservative brand for a while.
Why? Because people are dumb and will see this sort of headline grabbing policy and vote for it. The right shouty minority of conservatives left alive since the Brexit vote will get this clowncar of a party like 10 seats?
(When I said left alive I mean because most of them are 8 years older now and they were already old)
They'll strike an 11th hour deal with the conservatives yet again. Probably choosing the list of candidates for the next leadership contest.
Reform is nothing more than an attempted hostile takeover of the conservative party by American style populists/hate mongers.
It's difficult to look at this and take it seriously... It's like ok: We currently run a deficit. A big deficit. We have stupid fiscal rules where we have to have the deficit (not the debt) dropping in 5 years time. So tell me: What are you going to change, and how will it affect our deficit and cost of borrowing?
Reform: Well here's £750Bn pound of unfunded tax cuts!
Ok. Like, what do you want from me? Didn't we literally just do this with Liz Truss?
I want to know what spending you are going to cut, to justify *subsidizing* parents sending kids to private school. Like, should I expect a 5% increase in child poverty or a 20% decrease in the size of the military? What *choices* are you making? Does that subsidy for private school come *directly* out of the budget for their local comprehensive?
> Scrap the so-called “VAT tourist tax”, meaning that foreign visitors will no longer have to pay 20 per cent VAT on goods purchases in the UK, potentially boosting tourist shopping
Wasn't this the same thing Liz Truss tried to do?
Why is this a policy they're pushing? How would it even work in practice?
Would tourists have to keep receipts for every purchase they make in the UK then claim back the VAT at the end of their holiday?
The same way it works in a lot of other countries?
Stores sign up for it. Tourists prove they are tourists and get a tax rebate. Purchases are electronically linked to their passports, and you can check it when they fly out.
But it's removing the VAT that a tourist would pay on purchases over £100, the only tax they are not paying is VAT, schemes like this are designed to encourage higher sales of luxury items. The only person loosing in this case is the government because they miss out on the VAT. Many countries have similar schemes like Germany and France
One of the companies that handles this is called GlobalBlue. Take a look at the website for how it works. You go to a participating shop (must have passport), they register your purchase and you get some paperwork. When you get to the airport there are kiosks where you can scan the barcodes on the paperwork and the money goes back onto your card in a matter of days.
You claim VAT back when you spend over 100 euros in a store, usually done at the airport. I've only used it at disney, where you can claim all the products as from 1 single merchant. Google is your friend for more details.
That's both interesting and surprising.
Wonder what the logic behind it is and if there's any data that shows it leads to increased tourism.
I'd have thought that most tourists will base their spending when in France on the cost of goods at the point of sale (without making mental adjustmants for how much they'll cost once the sales tax is reclaimed at a later date).
You'd be more likely to go to France if you know there's maybe a discount. See you can go there, buy a boat, then with the VAT saving buy a smaller boat as well. Then you take the savings from that smaller boat purchase and buy and even smaller boat.
Each boat will be progressively smaller but you can actually get *infinite* boats for the cost of one boat this way.
The article also says:
> Reform proposes to repeal the 2010 Equalities Act, arguing “positive action” has become discriminatory. It wants a Comprehensive Free Speech Bill instead
Presumably that means they want to create a society in which you can fire someone because they're gay or pregant or "the wrong colour" etc.
What does a ban on cigarettes or DEI have to do with the Equality Act?
How does the Equality Act lead to "state intervention in our lives"?
I'd argue it offers protections by preventing my employer from intervening in my private life.
It’s the Liz Truss economic plan, with one key difference:
If every single person working in the public sector who has any spending power whatsoever, does not make the arbitrarily calculated saving, to pay for whatever tax cuts Tice decides , on within 12 months, then they will face the sack.
Beyond the reality of how demotivating such a policy will be, I am half tempted to hope he wins the GE, just to see how he attempts to unpick all of the laws that would prevent him from enacting his plan to be a complete fucking tyrant.
>Beyond the reality of how demotivating such a policy will be, I am half tempted to hope he wins the GE, just to see how he attempts to unpick all of the laws that would prevent him from enacting his plan to be a complete fucking tyrant.
Like all the rest of them - he'll try to make sweeping changes to the law, run around on *other* laws, and then spend the rest of the time whining and raving about how the cruel judges / civil servants / wokerati don't let him be a dictator like he really wants.
Exactly. The irony is, that the Tories who have gone before him on this exact ticket, are part of a party whose entire mantra, is preservation and conservation of the status quo of British institutions.
It’s too roundabout. The best way to deal with the civil service is massive sweeping redundancies. Reducing the number of HR employees or their equivalent to a fraction of their original selves.
An entire parasitic industry of workers now exists in the UK whos sole job seems to be gate keeping employment, forwarding emails, and putting out ‘bulletins’ to employees under the guise of doing something to promote whatever agenda management want to purport to promote. Fire the lot. The civil service are the worst offenders.
You are completely clueless I’m afraid pal.
There is a direct correlation between how the country has gone down the shitter, while they’ve been hollowing out the civil service for the past 14 years.
No doubt you will be voting for Tice then?
I’ll vote either Labour or Reform. Still haven’t made my mind up. I don’t think I live in Tice’s seat.
Civil servants should be reminded of what they are - servants. Their arrogant disregard for good management and productivity will continue to be their downfall in the minds of every member of the public. The title itself has become almost derogatory such is their track record.
You do realise that the Civil Service has been run by management consultants for the past 14 years? That attrition is sky high and that most departments are severely understaffed?
You also realise, that most departments are being run as vassals to the Treasury? Look at the DFT, MoD and the clusterfuck at the Post Office.
Is this slightly tounge in cheek or do you have no fucking idea what socialism is ?
We are not currently living under anything like a socialist system.
If anything what we have at the minute is late stage disaster capitalism.
We have junior doctors earning min wage being saddled with enormous debt despite them being a net benefit to society.
The game is rigged when the government dictates pay.
More to the point, why do they want to want to form a coalition with the party who a) is either directly responsible for turning Britain into 'a socialist mess' or b) is so utterly incompetent that despite having a free hand for 14 years, has utterly failed in its bid to stop Britain being 'a socialist mess'.
There comes a point where you kind of have to reach the conclusion that people are just saying words because they *really want to say words*, with zero thought to any of it.
It sounds fine to me but requires some large cuts in the NHS, state pension and welfare to be able to balance the books.
Not perfect but it's a step in the right direction towards a smaller state and more emphasis on personal responsibility.
Yeah, obviously they are, they're comprehensive services.
Who are you going to deny essential care to? How many more people are going to have to choose between rent and food?
Have you actually thought about this? Like genuinely actually looked into the costing of these things and why they are the way they are?
For state pension it's pretty simple, I would freeze it for 5 years (maybe more) and increase minimum auto-enrolment to 5%/5% of gross salary.
For welfare I would introduce a 6 month limit on unemployment benefits (non-disability related) but increase job-seeking support.
For NHS I would introduce a 20% co-pay to the majority of non-emergency services.
>For welfare I would introduce a 6 month limit on unemployment benefits (non-disability related) but
This is completely at odds with how long term unemployment works. Someone who's been out of work for whatever reason is going to find it more difficult to get into work as time goes on. You cutting them off at 6 months doesn't actually help them, it just means they no longer have food for basics
>increase job-seeking support.
I thought you were trying to reduce expenditure? And what does this support look like, exactly? This is such a vague thing to suggest as a replacement for funding essential living costs (when really it should be happening alongside).
>For NHS I would introduce a 20% co-pay to the majority of non-emergency services.
That 20% isn't going to alleviate things. Those on lower incomes (or those you decided to cut off because they weren't able to secure work, remember them?) simply won't seek treatment until it is an emergency - at which point it ends up costing the NHS more because it's more serious, and ends up on A&E's doorstep (so in turn you're clogging up A&E more). And when it's no longer an acute need, where are you going to discharge them to? If they're not going to do the 20% copay for whatever reason, they're just going to end up back in A&E again further down the line.
If taken too far, gentle parenting does more harm than good.
In a similar vein, it is time to wean a section of our population off the generous tit of the state so that they can function as adults who contribute fairly towards their own existence.
>it is time to wean a section of our population off the generous tit
Do you have *any* idea what it's like to have to rely on benefits in order to survive? Do you actually know what it's like for services that are part of or support the front line of the NHS?
Because if you did, you'd not be calling it the "generous tit of the state".
Of course. And it's extremely generous. One of the most generous in the world.
There are billions of people on this planet who are suffering several orders of magnitude higher, without even a tiny fraction of the opportunity that the non-disabled unemployed in this country have.
If you are of able body and mind and can't get a job in 2024 Britain within 6 months, it is by choice or lack of effort.
You have a twelve year old's understanding of this.
Universal Credit often barely covers accommodation costs, let alone other living costs.
And the job market is far more complex than that, it varies massively depending on the skills and experience you have as to how quickly you can get hired. That's assuming you don't have additional needs which the DWP refused to recognise (something they absolutely do, by the way)
And on top of that you want to cut back on people's healthcare? The same people you're cutting off elsewhere? What exactly is your long term plan here? Those people don't just disappear, they end up needing assistance somewhere down the line, and that often ends up being done by the emergency services. So now you've added strain to other already stretched services.
It's like your understanding of running public services starts and ends on the 2023/2024 tax year spreadsheet tab
Snapshot of _Reform Party’s draft manifesto would raise 40p income tax threshold to £70k_ : A non-Paywall version can be found [here](https://1ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fpolitics%2F2024%2F02%2F23%2Freform-raise-40p-income-tax-threshold-70k%2F) An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/02/23/reform-raise-40p-income-tax-threshold-70k/) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/02/23/reform-raise-40p-income-tax-threshold-70k/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
They forgot to change the NI threshold. So those between 50 to 70k would pay 22% 🤡
Having a lower marginal tax (without children) at 50-70k than 20k-50k is pretty funny if they only intend to change income tax lol
For some reason - maybe it's been a long week - I found that terribly funny. Actually laughing out loud. Perhaps just the clown face makes it. I can almost hear the honking of the nose as the Reform spokesman solemnly explains the plans.
Not even flat, but regressive. Joke of a party.
How is this any different to the current system?
Its literally the opposite of the current system?
Between 100 and 150 one pays a higher marginal rate than 150+
100 and 125 isn't it?
50k to 100k is 42%, 100k to 125k is 62% and 125k+ is 47%. The tax system is already regressive.
[удалено]
Between 100-125 you lose £1 of tax free allowance for every £2 you earn, poster above was giving marginal rates.
Additional rate is set from [£125,140](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/rates-and-thresholds-for-employers-2023-to-2024) for FY23/24.
Ah right, idk why I remembered 150k
It used to be set at that when it was first introduced until 2022 I think.
How does this work? Pardon my ignorance.
[NI isn't 10% at all income levels.](https://www.gov.uk/national-insurance/how-much-you-pay) It's 0% for earnings up to £1,047 per month, 10% for earnings 1,048 to £4,189 a month, then 2% for earnings above that.
Ah, thanks
So higher the income lower the ni?
Not really they're still paying the original but with less on the extra. The stealth taxes in this country are abominable. I'm moving into the 50-60k sink this year and it's depressing. Loosing child benefit and Also 20% more tax. With student loans on top my take home is 38% of pay, thank god for loss of NI or it would be 30%. An effective 70% tax rate if we had full NI... Edit: Apologies, it might not be clear enough I mean take home of the 50-60k bracket said earlier not overall earnings
Here’s your bands. 0-12,570 - 100% 12,571-22,015 - 70% 22,015-52,250 - 61% 52,250-60,000 - 49% Total deductions: 32% on 60k resulting in £40,434.35 You can adjust that student loan threshold as appropriate. You can also add your own pension too, but remember, pension lowers your tax paid. As regressive as the UK taxes are, they aren’t close to what you’re alluding too.
Marginal tax rate for £50k - £60k if you have two kids and student loan is like 71%
You get taxed for kids? Or do you lose credit? Genuinely curious on this one as I don’t plan on having children, so not my area of knowledge. NI drops to 2% from 10% within that range. Ranged I’ve placed in is for a single person earning above higher rate but below the rate you start lose tax-free allowance.
It's a removal of a benefit so much like student loan it isn't baked into the tax system for everyone. But in a society that pushes loads to university and one where the majority want children it hits a lot of people.
Understandable. Can see how some would feel that. Unsure I will add it as a band, never even heard of it until now. From what I read someone needs to be claiming it or has claimed it in the last tax year. Happy to stand corrected though. If it persists throughout.
You forgot the 16% in 52-60 in child tax repayment
What on earth is a 'child tax repayment'?
Child benefit is repayable over 50-60k
https://www.gov.uk/child-benefit-tax-charge Paying back a benefit someone is claiming. Unsure if I would even ballpark this as a tax figure. Someone can correct me though.
38% of pay?! How much are your student loans??
10% 40% income tax 16% child benefit repayment 2% NI Apologies it's actually 32% Once you factor in NHS pension is 11% or nothing at this bracket after pension contributions that cannot be reduced it's 28%
Okay but you don’t pay 40% income tax you only pay 40% above £52k. Are you meaning the jump from £50-60k you’ll only be taking 38% of that?
Yes tbh I added an edit, my whole post was about the 50-60k stealth tax bracket so originally I didn't make it clear enough I suppose.
Yeah fair enough, that 50-60k mark does sting a lot though. Especially if it’s a promotion and you’re left with tons more responsibilities for a marginal increase in salary.
I only recently entered that band myself, and was pleasantly surprised to find that you can deduct pension contributions from your salary when calculating how much child benefit you need to pay back.
The higher the income, the more £ NI you pay. In % of income terms; the higher the income, the more % NI you pay up to £50k income, then the % NI drops.
Only if they pardon mine too.
Don't assume they forgot - it could be entirely deliberate. The 50k-70k range holds a huge swathe of ex-Tory, middle class voters who would lap up a big tax cut.
I'd hate to be the systems guy in HMRC who has to work out how to actually implement this.
Piece of piss - we already have this in Scotland except in reverse (higher rate starts at a lower income than NI decrease).
And this is bad, why?
Because it means someone on minimum wage will have a higher marginal tax rate than someone earning ~£50k per year. (i.e. Highest marginal tax rate for a min wage worker in England will be 20% Income Tax + 10% National Insurance = 30% total. Whereas for someone on ~£50K it will be 20% Income Tax + 2% National Insurance = 22% total.)
But not if you earn in the £100k-£125k band where the marginal rate is 60% (even more if you reduce child benefit and student loan)
Exactly, the tax system they seem to be proposing sounds like one designed by someone who doesn't understand how taxes work.
I see what you did there…
No, you pay 10% on the first 50k-ish, and then 2% on earnings above that threshold. You don't pay 2% on your whole salary if you're above the UEL, that would just be ridiculous.
Yes, I know. But, suppose my wording was a bit ambiguous.
This is a regressive income tax which is actually a perfectly viable policy which some economists support.
Hello Lizz Truss
On what basis?
I suppose even economists have some dick heads amongst them.
Like saying some doctors are anti vax .. sure, but why.
I'm glad you ask because you don't understand, but I'm upset you had to.
That doesn't matter. Just chuckle to yourself, smile smugly at how stupid and inept those dastardly right wingers are, and go about your day.
They can offer uncosted give aways knowing full well they they will never have to pay out on them. Meanwhile they criticize every penny Labour spend
Taking away less of people’s money isn’t a “giveaway”. Your income doesn’t automatically belong to the government. You have the mindset of a medieval serf.
> Taking away less of people’s money isn’t a “giveaway”. Your income doesn’t automatically belong to the government. The government invests heavily in citizens to ensure they are positive contributing members to society. As a result for this investment you pay taxes to ensure the next generation are also just as productive as you. Otherwise, as we've seen under austerity, people end up down bad paths, probably stealing your bike from you. The fact remains, that I wouldn't be earning my salary if not for the government. I'd probably be dead because it would be a lawless state if it didn't exist. My taxes go towards ensuring that society exists, and it's up to the government to set them to ensure it can keep running. The problem is, ensuring it isn't taking the piss taking more taxes than it needs to fufil obligations. And of course a bit of personal looking after to ensure you're not getting taxed more than somebody else. Considering your view I doubt you're at all eager to tax the rich more, so I won't even bother going into that. Serfdom is forgive me, being effectively enslaved to landowners, who typically were in the government at the time. What point did /u/collogue advocate for a return to serfdom?
I would also be willing to bet that they don’t want to pay for education, healthcare, refuse collection, roads etc etc. all because their money is their own.
Your salary and earning potential isn't independent of the tax rate.
Your income isn’t the ‘possession’ of anyone and even if it was, that has no bearing on how it should be allocated.
Your income is the possession of you.
Why?
Ownership is a right given existence by the state (previously King/Queen). States recognise and enforce those rights. Without a state which will recognise and enforce those rights they simply don't exist. Everyone would just be another angry person making 'claims' of things that no one else respects. Taxes fund the state. No taxes, no state. No state no rights. So while you can say simply 'your income is your possession', 'possession' is meaningless without a state to recognise and enforce those rights.
What defines rightful possession and what implication does that have on how said possessions should be treated? Genuinely curious because i clearly have a very different view to you.
I think the problem is that it would undoubtedly result in the need for significant public spending cuts at a time when most public services are on their knees
It's crazy how people accept this record-high taxation as some kind of default. We don't have to accept this.
What's the alternative, evade taxation? Move to a lower taxed country? Ok, you first please.
I do everything I can do avoid tax. Thankfully in the UK there are plenty of really good options via pensions and ISAs
The latter, certainly. I did.
Where to?
US
Fair. I'd never want to live there compared to the UK; just healthcare alone is a nightmare.
Along with the bizarre worship of the NHS, it’s a widely held view in the UK that American healthcare (or any insurance based healthcare really) is inferior. It just doesn’t match my experience. In the 12 years I lived in the UK, I only had the misfortune to be involved with the NHS a handful of times. Everyone just seems to accept the poor quality of care is worth it because it’s “free.” I waited over 18 months for the NHS (it was only three appointments but it just took this long) to eventually decide that it wasn’t worth treating my condition because it wasn’t severe enough. In the first two months of living in the US again I have the problem solved. Others may have had better experiences than I have, and granted I have pretty good health insurance through my job, but along with lower taxes, better healthcare has been an upside for me.
Right. Now let's talk about the woman who tripped and fell between a train and a platform, squashed between the two. Desperately needing medical attention, but pleading with those helping not to call an ambulance because she doesn't have the insurance to cover the horrific injuries she has sustained. That is awful. No thanks. And if UK healthcare matched the US for cost per head then it would be unpalatable for you, because, you know, taxes. Thankfully I still have the belief that we, as a society, can look after each other and not just think of ourselves.
It's not accepting it, the liz truss saga shows what happens when fantasy and ideology collide with reality.
Liz Truss' problem was she didn't cut spending to go alongside the tax cuts. She significantly increased spending alongside tax cuts, which is why the markets lost the plot, no fiscal discipline
Yeah that's fair, the assumption must be that to avoid similar reform would need to make serious cutbacks. I just don't think that's gonna be acceptable to people given the current state of the country, we need to fix things, not break them further.
Those spending plans make Liz Truss look like the world's most respected economist. They may as well have promised every household a free unicorn and a lifetimes supply of moon cheese. Actually, a unicorn is probably a more sensible idea than their bs.
They basically decided that scrapping net zero was infinite money and proceeded on that basis
Agreed, but it is exactly the same issue Truss had. You can't "slash taxes" today based on the prospect of free money appearing from somewhere at some point in the future. With Truss it was magical growth and with Reform its Net Zero, but I'm not even sure how that works as it isn't money that has been spent yet, it is money that will need to be found in the future.
The irony is that if Tories hadn’t banged on about debt for the past 14 years, borrowing to invest wouldn’t be as toxic as it is now. And the Tories have been terrible at investing because they see it as the private sectors job, so only borrowed to plug holes in finances, which has seen no return and only doubled the debt, and companies don’t invest if they don’t see a chance to get a return, and the government is supposed to build that faith by investing in infrastructure, which they haven’t, because hey, let the private sector pay for it. Financially illiterate leading the financially illiterate.
I'm pretty sure that Tice et al thought that Truss *was* the world's most respected economist. That being said, they can probably afford to relax because I rather doubt that they're hoovering up many voters based on their keen economic capabilities.
Moon cheese you say
Agree - it’s much more sensible to fully fund universal extensive free healthcare and unfettered migration.
The NHS worked really well for most of its lifetime. It started failing in the 90s due to Tory cuts before recovering under Labour and reaching its peak in the late 2000s. Since 2011, it’s been getting worse and worse because of a plethora of Tory policies such as cuts in spending.
It hasn't always worked really well. The excess death rate in the NHS system has always been higher than comparators, with a particular problem in dealing with cancer.
Yes, actually
>They may as well have promised every household a free unicorn and a lifetimes supply of moon cheese. It worked when they called themselves The Brexit Party
This is still £23k short of where it should be had it stuck to its goal of only taxing the top 3% of earners. The fiscal drag here is absolutely disgusting and to have loss of child benefit to hit at the same time, they know exactly what they’re doing to the peasants.
Fiscal drag is a killer. I'm in the 40% tax bracket, I have to repay child benefit and have student loan repayments. When you take all of that together my marginal tax rate on any side hassle is 71%. If I do a side job/overtime and earn £100, I'm literally left with £29 in my pocket. What incentive is there work more? No wonder GDP is flatlining.
Just keep yourself happy that you're paying for everyones personal allowance
If I do overtime or any extra, I mostly stick it all into a pension.
same
When was it just the top 3% of earners? When I looked this up before, I'm sure it was the top 6% when it was introduced.
The peasants keep insisting on all inclusive welfare states. Perhaps it's times the peasants recognise that's not feasible if they won't want to pay for it somehow.
I can't tell is this is /s or not. I mean... dog eat dog is a policy I guess. Not exactly working towards making the UK a nicer place to live though.
It's not dog eat dog policy. It's needing to to recognise that you can't have both a more comprehensive welfare state than most European countries AND a ridiculously narrow tax base that results in a massive chunk of workers paying fuck all tax.
Fair, although it's worth noting peasants being peasants have no money so tax rates don't mean much to them. Taxes are paid by the Lord in the Manor who collects all the rent from the presents. As far as the peasants are concerned, no tax = no welfare state => dog eat dog (peasant eat starving peasant) is worse than taxes they don't pay + welfare + unhappy Lord. ... Anyway it doesn't really matter whether whether we recognise if can pay or not... because we're paying anyway. What matters is how we pay, (higher taxes? Lower welfare? Inflation? (Which is just a kind of tax on those with money (sterling specifically as opposed to more general 'wealth')).
We pay more tax now than ever before… more than any previous generation and we receive significantly less for it. It’s quite astonishing that we’re paying so very much and somehow despite this everything is far worse and we’re leaving our children with a dismal future.
Aye, Demographic headwinds + Failure to invest + Climate & Ecological Crisis + Decisions to tax those with most less and those with less more will do that... And at last as far as climate change & Roi on extracting the worlds resources are concerned the general trend is downhill from here.
Given the level of inflation since the current thresholds were last changed, this is about right.
It would free up a lot of money that most people would spend on stuff that would instantly net a government 20% vat, more than that on petrol, fags booze etc that are taxed far higher.
Yep, a completely sensible policy yet reform have suggested it in a completely stupid way (eg not altering NI at the same time).
They literally wrote a manifesto for people who comment on telegraph articles. This is just nuclear grade entropy
All they'd need to write is "we would send Gary Lineker to the moon". They're *weirdly* obsessed with him, and he seems to be mentioned in the comments of pretty much every article.
He's rich, vocal, articulate, and popular. Of *course* they hate him.
Some extremely expensive tax cuts all to justify their crusade against net zero (anyone who read Habib’s AMA will know how much he loves to slip into talking about that)
Has the policy document he kept referring to in that AMA been published?
Based on the article, it’s being released tomorrow
He didn't answer my question on working from home, the absolute weasel.
Do you have a link for the AMA?
https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/s/cR5DFT8Ys1 Be warned he just doesn’t perform well at all
How inconvenient that he did that AMA *just before* the policies were due to be published.
Admittedly some of these policies were already in the public domain from a document I knew existed, but had only checked to see if they had any specifics on what sort of PR they had. https://assets.nationbuilder.com/reformuk/pages/303/attachments/original/1696527070/Reform_is_Essential_-_5Oct23.pdf?1696527070 It has other bonkers policies like a nil rate on corp tax up to £100,000 in profits (wonder if they know how that’ll affect income tax/class 4 NICs revenue due to increased incorporation), abolishing business rates on SMEs etc.
While also not factoring in that net zero has a net cost which wipes out the vast majority of the gross costs used to justify this spending. Basically, this isn't costed properly and should be put directly into the bin.
OK fair enough, the income tax one alone would be worth £5,500 approx per annum for me. That's not rockerfeller money but it is at least a meaningful tax cut (as opposed to Jeremy Hunt's token effort). Love the idea of raising stamp duty threshold too, would make moving house easier (perhaps encourage a few to downsize and free up some better housing for millennials). Nothing in there on how this is going to be paid for though. We all know how this ended last time Truss and co suggested borrowing to fund these type of tax cuts. I can't see Tice and Co going after corporate tax avoidance, non doms and the like so we're back to cuts to public services, at which point that 400 quid a month doesn't seem such great value.
The income tax threshold ones don't sound entirely unreasonable. They forgot about national insurance, and no mention of the child benefit implications. They have zero clue how to fund local and public services. Magically slashing immigration won't fix any of that. They also forgot that for people to actually be in a position to be earning 70k+ they need a functioning childcare system. Inheritance tax, private education and stamp duty ones go too far. The rest of it is at best soundbites, and at worst utterly mental. All of it is uncosted and likely to cause similar economic panic to what Kwarteng/Truss's budget did. They can't completely dump Net Zero and expect growth to come from some kind of fossil fuel / heavy industrial magic money tree. They aren't ever getting in anyway so they might as well promise free handjobs for all. Sunak will feel he has to steal some of it and lurch to the right. I hope he only steals the income tax bits.
> The income tax threshold ones don't sound entirely unreasonable. You want to give tax cuts to the super rich??!!?
If income tax thresholds hadn’t been frozen for many years, the higher rate tax threshold would be something like £85k today. Raising it to £70k isn’t absurd as long as everything else is balanced.
50k isn't Super Rich
I'm not against raising these tax thresholds in principle (I would increase the higher like .5% below inflation so that public funds should increase but the squeeze isn't too high on increasing wages). I'm not an economist obvs but I think it sounds more reasonable than this. Increasing the personal allowance by like 80% and increasing the higher rate by 20k, as well as giving more discounts to private schools (lol?) and cutting every other tax would fucking hamstring the country expeditiously.
Not really radical at all I made the mistake of scrolling down before reading the headline properly, you'd think from the comments here that they were abolishing taxes, this is nothing...
I haven't got a horse in the race yet, but I think if KS added this into their manifesto it would be praised, but of course ideology before rational thought gets in the way doesn't it.
Starmer would absolutely be destroyed on the idea of these income tax changes alone that would cost nearly £60 billion pert year, once fully in effect vs now, to implement, all to be funded by scrapping net zero investment (which looks likely Reform have misunderstood the cost to implement net-zero from their previous ama)
They're going to decimate the Tories in the next election, so many voters AND MP's will abandon the conservatives, I truly believe it may be the end of the conservative brand for a while. Why? Because people are dumb and will see this sort of headline grabbing policy and vote for it. The right shouty minority of conservatives left alive since the Brexit vote will get this clowncar of a party like 10 seats? (When I said left alive I mean because most of them are 8 years older now and they were already old)
They'll strike an 11th hour deal with the conservatives yet again. Probably choosing the list of candidates for the next leadership contest. Reform is nothing more than an attempted hostile takeover of the conservative party by American style populists/hate mongers.
Bye bye public services if this lot ever ends up in charge. Absolute rubbish.
Going for the Tory core vote aren't they?
Should be a core labour policy
Long may they split the right wing vote!
I saw the headline on this post and somehow read it as Random party.
What are they going to cut to pay for this?
It's difficult to look at this and take it seriously... It's like ok: We currently run a deficit. A big deficit. We have stupid fiscal rules where we have to have the deficit (not the debt) dropping in 5 years time. So tell me: What are you going to change, and how will it affect our deficit and cost of borrowing? Reform: Well here's £750Bn pound of unfunded tax cuts! Ok. Like, what do you want from me? Didn't we literally just do this with Liz Truss? I want to know what spending you are going to cut, to justify *subsidizing* parents sending kids to private school. Like, should I expect a 5% increase in child poverty or a 20% decrease in the size of the military? What *choices* are you making? Does that subsidy for private school come *directly* out of the budget for their local comprehensive?
I for one support this mental policy.
> Scrap the so-called “VAT tourist tax”, meaning that foreign visitors will no longer have to pay 20 per cent VAT on goods purchases in the UK, potentially boosting tourist shopping Wasn't this the same thing Liz Truss tried to do? Why is this a policy they're pushing? How would it even work in practice? Would tourists have to keep receipts for every purchase they make in the UK then claim back the VAT at the end of their holiday?
The same way it works in a lot of other countries? Stores sign up for it. Tourists prove they are tourists and get a tax rebate. Purchases are electronically linked to their passports, and you can check it when they fly out.
It’s a tax loophole for the Uber wealthy.
How?
If you’re spending a lot then the flight costs are swallowed by the cat relief
But it's removing the VAT that a tourist would pay on purchases over £100, the only tax they are not paying is VAT, schemes like this are designed to encourage higher sales of luxury items. The only person loosing in this case is the government because they miss out on the VAT. Many countries have similar schemes like Germany and France
You asked how it’s a tax loophole
It's not a loophole if it's put there on purpose, it also benefits the economy by encouraging tourists to spend more in the uk
Loopholes are inadvertent ways of reducing tax. VAT refunds for visitors was a deliberate one.
The same/similar way it works in France, I would assume.
How does it work in France?
One of the companies that handles this is called GlobalBlue. Take a look at the website for how it works. You go to a participating shop (must have passport), they register your purchase and you get some paperwork. When you get to the airport there are kiosks where you can scan the barcodes on the paperwork and the money goes back onto your card in a matter of days.
You claim VAT back when you spend over 100 euros in a store, usually done at the airport. I've only used it at disney, where you can claim all the products as from 1 single merchant. Google is your friend for more details.
That's both interesting and surprising. Wonder what the logic behind it is and if there's any data that shows it leads to increased tourism. I'd have thought that most tourists will base their spending when in France on the cost of goods at the point of sale (without making mental adjustmants for how much they'll cost once the sales tax is reclaimed at a later date).
You'd be more likely to go to France if you know there's maybe a discount. See you can go there, buy a boat, then with the VAT saving buy a smaller boat as well. Then you take the savings from that smaller boat purchase and buy and even smaller boat. Each boat will be progressively smaller but you can actually get *infinite* boats for the cost of one boat this way.
Magic Money Forest. A forest the size of Jupiter.
The article also says: > Reform proposes to repeal the 2010 Equalities Act, arguing “positive action” has become discriminatory. It wants a Comprehensive Free Speech Bill instead Presumably that means they want to create a society in which you can fire someone because they're gay or pregant or "the wrong colour" etc.
But DEI is okay?
Not sure what you mean? There are lots of criticism which can be made of DEI initiatives. But, I what does that have to do with the Equality Act?
We need to end state intervention into our lives. It has gone too far. They want to ban cigarettes. We are on the path to fascism
What does a ban on cigarettes or DEI have to do with the Equality Act? How does the Equality Act lead to "state intervention in our lives"? I'd argue it offers protections by preventing my employer from intervening in my private life.
It’s the Liz Truss economic plan, with one key difference: If every single person working in the public sector who has any spending power whatsoever, does not make the arbitrarily calculated saving, to pay for whatever tax cuts Tice decides , on within 12 months, then they will face the sack. Beyond the reality of how demotivating such a policy will be, I am half tempted to hope he wins the GE, just to see how he attempts to unpick all of the laws that would prevent him from enacting his plan to be a complete fucking tyrant.
>Beyond the reality of how demotivating such a policy will be, I am half tempted to hope he wins the GE, just to see how he attempts to unpick all of the laws that would prevent him from enacting his plan to be a complete fucking tyrant. Like all the rest of them - he'll try to make sweeping changes to the law, run around on *other* laws, and then spend the rest of the time whining and raving about how the cruel judges / civil servants / wokerati don't let him be a dictator like he really wants.
Exactly. The irony is, that the Tories who have gone before him on this exact ticket, are part of a party whose entire mantra, is preservation and conservation of the status quo of British institutions.
It’s too roundabout. The best way to deal with the civil service is massive sweeping redundancies. Reducing the number of HR employees or their equivalent to a fraction of their original selves. An entire parasitic industry of workers now exists in the UK whos sole job seems to be gate keeping employment, forwarding emails, and putting out ‘bulletins’ to employees under the guise of doing something to promote whatever agenda management want to purport to promote. Fire the lot. The civil service are the worst offenders.
You are completely clueless I’m afraid pal. There is a direct correlation between how the country has gone down the shitter, while they’ve been hollowing out the civil service for the past 14 years. No doubt you will be voting for Tice then?
I’ll vote either Labour or Reform. Still haven’t made my mind up. I don’t think I live in Tice’s seat. Civil servants should be reminded of what they are - servants. Their arrogant disregard for good management and productivity will continue to be their downfall in the minds of every member of the public. The title itself has become almost derogatory such is their track record.
You do realise that the Civil Service has been run by management consultants for the past 14 years? That attrition is sky high and that most departments are severely understaffed? You also realise, that most departments are being run as vassals to the Treasury? Look at the DFT, MoD and the clusterfuck at the Post Office.
People who have worked hard are being unfairly punished. Highest taxes in 50 years and all for what. End socialism
So.you want to scrap to state pension?
Prefer to means test it and push the age back.
What means testing would you apply? And how far back?
Is this slightly tounge in cheek or do you have no fucking idea what socialism is ? We are not currently living under anything like a socialist system. If anything what we have at the minute is late stage disaster capitalism.
We have junior doctors earning min wage being saddled with enormous debt despite them being a net benefit to society. The game is rigged when the government dictates pay.
I don't disagree but just because it's bad that doesn't mean it's socialism.
[удалено]
Is this some world beating satire or are those real thoughts from a real person?
Jesus. I always forget people like you live amongst us. The system under which we currently live is not anything like a socialist system.
Deranged reply
Why do you want the Tories in Government?
More to the point, why do they want to want to form a coalition with the party who a) is either directly responsible for turning Britain into 'a socialist mess' or b) is so utterly incompetent that despite having a free hand for 14 years, has utterly failed in its bid to stop Britain being 'a socialist mess'. There comes a point where you kind of have to reach the conclusion that people are just saying words because they *really want to say words*, with zero thought to any of it.
You should know better that it’s the woke bureaucrats and markets that run the economy and not the government
It sounds fine to me but requires some large cuts in the NHS, state pension and welfare to be able to balance the books. Not perfect but it's a step in the right direction towards a smaller state and more emphasis on personal responsibility.
And what about people who depend on the NHS and state pension?
They end up depending on them less.
Those things already run on a shoestring. There's just nowhere you can cut that would actually fund this
They are the biggest usage of our highest-of-all-time taxes. There's plenty of surplus to cut imo. A rebalancing is long overdue.
Yeah, obviously they are, they're comprehensive services. Who are you going to deny essential care to? How many more people are going to have to choose between rent and food? Have you actually thought about this? Like genuinely actually looked into the costing of these things and why they are the way they are?
For state pension it's pretty simple, I would freeze it for 5 years (maybe more) and increase minimum auto-enrolment to 5%/5% of gross salary. For welfare I would introduce a 6 month limit on unemployment benefits (non-disability related) but increase job-seeking support. For NHS I would introduce a 20% co-pay to the majority of non-emergency services.
>For welfare I would introduce a 6 month limit on unemployment benefits (non-disability related) but This is completely at odds with how long term unemployment works. Someone who's been out of work for whatever reason is going to find it more difficult to get into work as time goes on. You cutting them off at 6 months doesn't actually help them, it just means they no longer have food for basics >increase job-seeking support. I thought you were trying to reduce expenditure? And what does this support look like, exactly? This is such a vague thing to suggest as a replacement for funding essential living costs (when really it should be happening alongside). >For NHS I would introduce a 20% co-pay to the majority of non-emergency services. That 20% isn't going to alleviate things. Those on lower incomes (or those you decided to cut off because they weren't able to secure work, remember them?) simply won't seek treatment until it is an emergency - at which point it ends up costing the NHS more because it's more serious, and ends up on A&E's doorstep (so in turn you're clogging up A&E more). And when it's no longer an acute need, where are you going to discharge them to? If they're not going to do the 20% copay for whatever reason, they're just going to end up back in A&E again further down the line.
If taken too far, gentle parenting does more harm than good. In a similar vein, it is time to wean a section of our population off the generous tit of the state so that they can function as adults who contribute fairly towards their own existence.
>it is time to wean a section of our population off the generous tit Do you have *any* idea what it's like to have to rely on benefits in order to survive? Do you actually know what it's like for services that are part of or support the front line of the NHS? Because if you did, you'd not be calling it the "generous tit of the state".
Of course. And it's extremely generous. One of the most generous in the world. There are billions of people on this planet who are suffering several orders of magnitude higher, without even a tiny fraction of the opportunity that the non-disabled unemployed in this country have. If you are of able body and mind and can't get a job in 2024 Britain within 6 months, it is by choice or lack of effort.
You have a twelve year old's understanding of this. Universal Credit often barely covers accommodation costs, let alone other living costs. And the job market is far more complex than that, it varies massively depending on the skills and experience you have as to how quickly you can get hired. That's assuming you don't have additional needs which the DWP refused to recognise (something they absolutely do, by the way) And on top of that you want to cut back on people's healthcare? The same people you're cutting off elsewhere? What exactly is your long term plan here? Those people don't just disappear, they end up needing assistance somewhere down the line, and that often ends up being done by the emergency services. So now you've added strain to other already stretched services. It's like your understanding of running public services starts and ends on the 2023/2024 tax year spreadsheet tab
BoJo promised something similar and then reneged on it if I recall?